


You make more than one mess when you spill ramen!

by deargodwhatisthatthing



Category: Gintama
Genre: F/M, Implied Sexual Content
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-10
Updated: 2016-10-10
Packaged: 2018-08-20 14:49:56
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 971
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8253047
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/deargodwhatisthatthing/pseuds/deargodwhatisthatthing
Summary: First fic!  Any thoughts?  Brutality in criticism is welcomed as long as it's specific :)





	

He was a tidy man. Fastidious really – “like a woman, eh, Zura?” Gintoki would have said, probably while discarding some junk food wrapper casually onto the floor in front of him. All those years looking after himself and they wanted him to pick up after them, too. But it was in his nature and his habit to be neat. He straightened the blankets, picked up her discarded yukata from the floor and folded it, stood the chair back up from where it had fallen. Then he did the washing up, folded all the tea-towels and, after some reflection, tidied her cutlery drawer.

He’d been trying to tidy up last night when she’d caught hold of the sleeve of his haori, her body turned towards him, her face turned away. He’d stopped and gazed at the hand clutching the fabric for a few moments before he had looked up to where the red flush was blooming up the skin of her neck. “Ikumatsu-dono, perhaps you’d better sit dow-“ He’d stopped when she had stumbled closer to him and turned her face up towards him and there had been a moment when she was so close, he could actually feel the warmth from her skin, almost feel the beat of her eyelashes…

He’d been expecting it and he was ready with his chivalrous refusal – he’d planned it, gentle but firm… so it had been a bit of a surprise – almost a disappointment, really - when nothing had happened. They had both looked owlishly at one another for a couple of seconds and then stepped apart, flustered: him blurting out some non-sequitur about forks and spoons and chopsticks and Ikumatsu muttering about spilt ramen on the tiles, necessitating a swift exit to get a cloth. 

It had been something of a let-down, really – his gallantry completely unspent. Perhaps that was why, when they had accidentally knocked heads in the middle of cleaning the floor, grimacing good-humouredly to find their faces so close, his guard had been so completely down… and the most surprising thing was that it had been _his _hand on her sleeve first, his breath on her neck, his fingers spreading on the hot bare skin of her back.__

On the whole, it had been a bit of a surprising night. 

He moved through the kitchen preoccupied, straightening bottles, wiping surfaces absentmindedly – force of habit removing the traces of his presence, covering his tracks. The thought of last night pulsed through him again. He hadn’t expected that pounding of his own blood in his head, the heat, the urgency. Not that he hadn’t wanted to, hadn’t thought about it. But he wasn’t the sort of man who succumbed to his urges very often; he felt that his drives were, well, loftier than that. He was used to denying himself the things he wanted – stability, safety, a real home - to uphold his bushido and defend the nation, to keep his will and his spirit dedicated, undistracted. 

But now he was distracted. Now, he was preoccupied and unfocused. Now, he had, in fact, just poured uneaten ramen into the dishwasher and thrown two plates in the bin, and so now he would have to spend a while with his head in the garbage trying to extricate them. He sighed. 

She _was _distracting, though, and it was not without reluctance that he acknowledged that he liked it, had been finding more and more reasons to be around so that he _could _be distracted. He liked the way she tied up her hair to cook – tugging and pulling, irritably and efficiently, as if impatient with even that slight frippery. He liked that she didn’t realise that when she shook out her hair after finishing work for the day, it was like she was letting go of a held breath. He liked that he got to see both of these Ikumatsus – the coil and the release.____

The sun was beginning to rise and he paused to adjust the blinds, checking automatically for police presence in the street outside. She was taking a risk just by serving him here – if the Shinsengumi began to suspect that she had links to him of a more personal nature… he’d mentioned it obliquely to her in the past and she had shrugged the concern off. “I don’t serve mayonnaise, why would they come here?” she’d said breezily, and then had changed the subject, her tone teasing, her body language telling him it didn’t matter how many policemen asked her if she knew anything, that she didn’t care if she lost customers because the Shinsengumi camped outside and glared at everyone who entered. Just so long as there was always one customer who kept slipping through the back window at odd times, to sit and awkwardly eat soba in a ramen shop in silence, shy and serious around her as if they were both 14 years old. 

She’d had one man walk out of this ramen shop and never return. She wanted this one to stay. 

Ikumatsu had said his name just once, last night, a low murmured “Kotarou” just before his lips had touched her throat and her fingers had twined into the hair at the nape of his neck. Her eyes were closed as his hands had slipped trembling beneath her clothing. He had just had to hope that it had been his name she had continued to think of, his hands, his face. 

He slid open the door to the bedroom. One white shoulder was rising from beneath the blanket, her face unguarded, vulnerable in sleep. His breath caught slightly in his throat and he swallowed down the sudden heat that had risen to his face once more. 

Katsura sighed again and began to colour-sort the towel pile. 

He liked things tidy, and this… this was going to be messy.

**Author's Note:**

> First fic! Any thoughts? Brutality in criticism is welcomed as long as it's specific :)


End file.
